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Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision To Go To Grad School (2010)

by Adam Ruben(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0307589447 (ISBN13: 9780307589446)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Three Rivers Press

review 1: I was laughing almost literally from cover to cover. Considering that I rarely laugh or even smile, that is a monumental achievement. The author, a former PhD student, knows his stuff, knows what you're going through, and knows how to use that knowledge to make gallows humor instead of inducing (more) depression. The chuckles start from the beginning, with a 140 page book being led off by a Foreword, a Preface, a Prologue, AND an introduction.First of all, I want to make it clear that this book, while marketed for grad students, can easily be applied to any form of post-graduate education. I am a Master's student to be, not a PhD student, and all of the jokes were eminently funny. Simply put, most of the experiences are universal to all students at college age or over, fro... morem tactics on selecting the best recommendation letter ("you know a professor well and s/he likes you, but do you know 3?"), what students look like ("coffee mug, practically a body part"), talks (person reads the entire slide word for word, rendering the slide useless), conferences (sleeping in a hotel room, or a packing crate if your department is tightfisted), LolGrads, high school reunions and the type of people you'll meet there, and a comparison of grad school and various other schools (business, medical, culinary, obedience, etc). While at least 70% of the humor is universally relatable to any post-grad student (or to an undergrad in a particularly competitive program and/or who has worked on a research project/in a lab), a big portion will only apply directly to grad students (duh!). While med students may find it hard to relate to the chunks on quals, an incisive med student will be able to draw the connection between quals (a massive exam at the end of the 2nd year of a PhD program) and Step I (a massive exam at the end of the 2nd year of medical school). The section on undergrad stereotypes and their perceived whining for extra credit (and half a point!) will be instantly recognizable to any student who watched these tactics in action or, shamefully, used them in the past. Padding a dissertation may be irrelevant for someone in an MBA program, but it will stoke memories of the tricks used to pad and stretch undergrad essays (14 point font, double line spacing). And everyone can relate to the difficulties in finishing a degree, even if they don't have to jump through a conga line of thesis advisors to do it.The author is a member of Gen Y/the Millennials, and it shows with the amount of pop culture references that he salts his book with. This is a book where Neil Patrick Harris is trotted out as an example of how easy a medical program is (Doogie Howser, MD - late 1980s), compared to a PhD program (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - late 2000s). A sharp-eyed reader will be able to catch these references, and more importantly, see how well he has incorporated them so that they don't feel forced.But the best thing about the book is that the author never preaches. He didn't write a humor book so that people could learn a few lessons, like sugarcoating some bitter medicine. He wrote a humor so that the people in these programs could let off some steam and feel like at least someone else in the Universe knew their pain. The author only gets serious in the last 8 pages or so, and it's pretty good advice. Even this little lesson is written in a way so that the text reads like a person wrote it and not a professional author looking to game some book sales. Maybe that's the book's true strength: empathy.Easily 5/5 stars, "Wait, that clock can't be right." This book will help me survive my own endeavor, and I probably would have found it useful if I'd read it during undergrad (when I did research in a lab filled with students going through the full PhD treatment). For more humor like this, I recommend "PHDComics.com" and the Dent print cartoons from the NIH. There aren't many people who understand what higher-er education is like. We are fortunate that some of the few who do, decided to make humor out of that knowledge.
review 2: Upon winning this book from Goodreads, I expected a book about college secrets or something to that degree to help me prepare for the daunting time I'll have to attend college myself. Boy, was I wrong! Surviving You Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School is actually really funny. Thanks to this book, I got a few laughs along with a few tricks to pull in case I'm ever stumped on a difficult AP question. Thanks for the book, Goodreads! less

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